Fine doorstops

I couldn’t put down Donna Tartt’s book The Goldfinch. I found myself reading it late into the night and even structuring my day so that I could get back to reading. Stephen King wrote about its 700-page length: “Prospective buyers have every right to ask: ‘Do I really want to give two weeks of my reading life to this novel?’” He then called The Goldfinch “a rarity,” one of a very few books that connect to both head and heart.

Narrator Theo is rescued from various tragedies by the love of parents, a wild friend, a mysterious girl, and a patient older man. The book includes profanity, underage drug use, and drinking, but there is a recurrent theme of the redemptive potential in human relationships and human love. The story also touches on the theological themes of evil and the suffering of innocents, as well as occasional almost Christ-like self-giving.